This is one of those activities of life that sounds a lot more simple than it actually was! At first I didn't bring the trailer with me, only the Washington tags. Turns out the Oregon DMV does a VIN inspection on all out of state title transfers. So, I had to head home (fortunately with a same-day return pass from the nice guy at the DMV) and bring the trailer back with me.
The pop-up has a wheel on the front that would be theoretically helpful if I wanted to rotate the camper in a campsite. In actuality, it is a bit of a pain to remove because of the low height of our trailer hitch. After trying to lift the trailer and remove the wheel, I remembered that I'm smarter than I am strong and I rigged up a temporary jack with the blocks we use to chock the wheels while the trailer is parked.
After I arrived at the DMV, I realized there was an important part of hitching that I had forgotten - the safety pin that keeps the mount on the ball. Fortunately the ride there was smooth and the hitch stayed put! Instead of using the safety pin, I put the hitch lock back in place. This has the added benefit of peace of mind so that someone couldn't steal the trailer off the back of my car while I am away. Yes, I am that
Because I am a big fan of not re-inventing things, I decided to go looking for a hitch video on YouTube so that I can be reminded of the steps to safely hitching the pop-up in the future. I found a pretty good video from a manufacturer of cargo trailers. It covers all the relevant points for campers too.
PS - Someone want to tell me how to embed videos in blogger?
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